The company is under investigation by Taiwan's FTC and may be fined.

Samsung Taiwan has apparently copped to using “anonymous” comments to astroturf forums, boosting the image of its own phones and denigrating those of HTC, according to a report from PC Advisor published Tuesday. Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has said it is investigating the matter and may fine the company up to NT$25 million (US$835,000) for its activities.

PC Advisor notes that a site called TaiwanSamsungLeaks uncovered alleged evidence that certain forum comments at OpenTide Taiwan were actually part of a marketing effort for Samsung phones. TaiwanSamsungLeaks asserts that marketers were posing as anonymous users on forums, and would talk down various HTC phones while praising those of Samsung.

In one instance, a poster speaks about his girlfriend’s HTC One X that constantly crashes, and asserts that Samsung’s Galaxy Note is superior to HTC’s Sensation XL. In another, a user posts battery and graphics benchmarks for the Galaxy S III and HTC One X, claiming the former to be the better phone. The English version of the Chinese site is still difficult reading, and the screenshots of the forum aren't translatable inside a browser, but a third highlighted post appears to disparage the Sony Xperia S. Many of the postings took place around a year ago.

Samsung Taiwan stated it had yet to receive any communication from the FTC on the matter, but in a statement to PC Advisor, the company said the “unfortunate incident” did occur, and it has “ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments.” Neither Samsung nor HTC immediately responded to requests for comment, but we will update this article if more details become available.